Training healthcare providers in patient–provider communication: What speech-language pathology and medical education can learn from one another

Abstract

Background: While the field of speech-language pathology and medical education both provide training to improve the abilities of their students to communicate with patients, these fields rarely interact or collaborate with one another to maximise the effectiveness of this training. With a recent emphasis on the communication needs of patients with aphasia and other communication disorders in healthcare, and barriers these patients often face in accessing healthcare services, it has become increasingly important to review current research regarding patient–provider communication training, as well as what speech-language pathology and medical education can learn from one another in this area.

Aims: The purpose of this literature review was (1) to examine the impact of communication disorders on patient–provider communication, (2) to identify gaps in current patient–provider communication training in medical education that speech-language pathology can help fill, and (3) to highlight innovations in medical education that may enhance the clinical training of speech-language pathology students.

Main Contributions: There is a significant body of research to demonstrate the effectiveness of patient–provider communication training in medical education. However, research and training in this area often neglects patients with aphasia and other communication disorders, who are more vulnerable to medical errors and poorer health outcomes than patients without communication disorders. Speech-language pathologists (SLPs) are uniquely qualified to train other healthcare providers in communication techniques to use with patients with communication disorders. The field of speech-language pathology can also benefit from using patient–provider communication frameworks and standardised patients to improve student training and service delivery for patients with communication disorders.

Conclusions: Collaboration between speech-language pathology and medical education can help to ensure the highest-quality healthcare services are offered to the patients they serve.

Keywords:

• Patient–provider communication
• Communication disorders
• Medical education

Acknowledgments

We would like to recognise the contribution of Bob Marshall PhD, who always taught his trainees about the importance teaching other professionals about communication disorders. We also acknowledge the support of the NIH training grant, NICHD (NCMRR: 5T32HD007424) and the Walter C. and Anita Stolov Award for funding part of this work.

Notes

¹ The studies from which these observations were taken are described in the Yorkston et al., (2008) and Baylor et al. (2011) studies although these publications do not contain all of the same examples that participants reported of their experiences with healthcare providers.